Archive for category Emotionally Yours

I once heard an old man say, “Happiness is for children.” The question that arises for me, “why is happiness so elusive?” When do we feel happy? We feel happy when we feel loved. We feel happy when what we are doing connects us with our core passion. Each one of us have a unique core passion which, if we follow it, will lead to our individual purpose.Our core passion is what we live as young children. As children we have not yet been taught that “You can’t do that…” I read once that someone said that the reason it is up to young people to bring new ways of thinking, new ways doing, new inventions, is because they do not know what is not possible. As we grow older we experience failures, we come up against the dead ends and we become disillusioned. Our experiences seem to teach us that to connect to our passion brings trouble, because it always involves bringing change, and the bringer of change is feared by the conditioned world. We are afraid of change, yetchange is life. When something stops evolving it faces extinction.

From what I have observed the pattern of growth is the same in all cycles of life. It involves the initial birth, “Big Bang”, a period of growth and development, a peak of the particular cycle, then a period of transition, where that which is, is not yet what it is to become. It is a period of uncertainty, confusion, because it is not a rational state. It is a feeling period, Everyone knows that you cannot speak rationally to an angry person, or for that matter with anyone who is madly in love. A particular feeling reaches its peak, then declines into release, which is often experienced by as a depression, and a feeling of inertia. In this period of inertia, relaxation, is sown the next cycle’s seed which surfaces in the period of clear thinking that always follows the period of inertia.

Buildup, release, relaxation. It is also found in the spiritual pattern of what is called the “In and out breath of Brahma”.

“The out-breath and in-breath of God could be likened to the swing of a pendulum. As the pendulum swing reaches its uppermost apex, there is a moment of complete rest before it continues its movement in the opposite direction. This moment of rest and lack of movement in God’s breathing is a moment of non-time, of eternity. Since the microcosm is like the macrocosm, this same process occurs many times each second as atoms of the physical world vibrate back and forth.”

The same is also experienced in the Dark Night of the soul. In creative work the same is also experienced where the bright idea is born out of the confusion, the chaos of possibilities. Everywhere you see this pattern, this cycle of life. This is the pattern, the cycle of life.

Most of us enter our adult lives in search for happiness. What that means to each of us, is uniquely individual. We must however realize that happiness is just like any other cycle that goes through the buildup, peak, decline and breakthrough. The time of each cycle is of course unique to each specific cycle and in the case of emotions, unique to each individual. The bliss you experience for example, at the beginning of a relationship will not last, and it is simply natural, not good or bad. If a relationship does not go through the natural cycle there would be no growth for the relationship or the individuals concerned, and the deeper bonding will not occur either. How long each phase lasts, is also unique to each relationship.

It is an illusion to think it is possible “to be happy for ever after.” This is where disillusionment and cynic approach is born. There is beauty and purpose in each of the seasons, it is just that we are taught, brainwashed, to strive only for eternal spring. In the world in which we live, the majority of people have no true understanding of the cycles of growth. There is despair when we reach the peak and face decline. Our expectations are unnatural, but at the same time it is only natural to feel a sadness when one cycle ends, and that we suppress too.

We are taught to suppress our sadness, cover it up with anger because somehow anger is considered less of a weakness than sadness. People feel uncomfortable with the sadness of others. What most people do not realize, is that to suppress our emotions, lead to irrational behavior. Behavior and emotions are separate. It took me a long time to understand that I cannot control my feelings, it has to cycle through the phases, we can however control our thoughts and behavior. When we do not release our emotions, it will be released through our shadow behavior. For example in each family unit certain emotions are o.k, and others are not. So to release the forbidden emotions, we would for example cover up our emotions by angry behavior, ” because anger in our family was o.k but sadness was not.”

Why each family has its own unique fences of what emotions are allowed and what is not, I believe a study of family history will reveal. In my case, I come from an Afrikaner family. It was o.k to show anger but we were taught not to show sadness, to stand resolute in the face of sorrow. In times of sorrow the black humor would appear. Tears swallowed as quickly as possible. I understand now where it came from.

“In his remarkable novel Vatmaar (take it then), based on stories told by the people of a coloured community on the platteland (rural area), AHM Scholtz writes of how the villages were hired to burn the Boer farmhouses, and how one old ouma (grandma) went back to fetch the family Bible from her burning home; ‘She came out of the house with the Book high above her head … Then the ouma turned into one huge flame, her dress was burnt out and her bonnet was the last to catch fire, and we looked at that face. Not a tear came out of those eyes or a sound from her mouth…’ Later, as her pregnant daughter rolled the old woman into her grave, she remained dry-eyed, then ‘turned round to face the Queen’s men and spat at them.”

During times of war such behavior may be admirable, but in normal living you will eventually pay the price of not letting your sorrow run its full course. It is so important to be constantly reviewing your feelings boundaries, so that it does not become simply an unconscious reaction.

In the book Hanta Yo, the lead character is the tribal chief.” After the deaths of his family, he must go into a special tepee, where he is given food and water. He must stay there until he weeps deeply and grieves his loss. This is a traditional ritual of the tribe, because they know the danger of having a leader on a field of battle who has not fully grieved an important loss. He will seek revenge because of his anger, and do something stupid that puts the tribe or himself at risk. We see examples throughout our culture of revenge behavior stemming from unresolved grief – excessive work, excessive play, excessive drugs, excessive sex, excessive material consumption, excessive alcohol, excessive food. Our homes need to be ‘special tepees’ where our sons and our men are allowed to grieve; to feel all of their emotions fully; to learn to consciously choose behavior that is life-affirming, rather than life-negative; to use the inner guidance system as a source of wisdom, power, and inner nurturing.” Don and Jeanne Elium

This shadow behavior confuses our inborn inner guidance system, that emotions in a normal cycle would reveal during the clear thinking phase. When we trust our feelings, we are in touch with the reality of our experience, then we can use our own values to direct our lives, rather than being swayed by the thoughts and actions of others. When we feel happy and alive, it reveals that we are aligned with our purpose in life.

We can control our thoughts by becoming aware of what we think, and by understanding why. Unconscious thoughts leads to unconscious behaviour. By being in control of our thoughts we can become in control of our behaviour. I say control not suppress. We all need fences, but they should be rational fences, not unconscious conditioned fences. Without personal fences we will have no personal identity.Ultimately our fences should be a positive fence of co-operation. We must acknowledge our feelings of anger for example, but if we know that we are going to hurt others through our anger, it is our responsibility to find a safe outlet for it, until we enter the clear thinking zone again.

LifeOverwhelm me windsof changeBlow, batter,bring your might.Will I still remain mewhen all that I knewis gone and comeand gone again?I a lonely polein the ocean of eternity,

Life?

Me meme meWhat am I?

Should I submit?Search no more?Live like a plantSearching for its place in the sunGrowingProducingRegeneratingAnd leave its legacy for the next generation?

It knows its meaningAnd its purposeAm I less thanA plant?

In the darkness of my despair I lay inert
I cannot give up
I cannot except the only failure
That of giving up
Have I not always found another way?
Why will it be any different now to then?

Again hope kindles in my breast
And in my still core
I know there still lies
something beautiful unborn.

The term “meme” ([miːm] in the IPA; rhymes with “dream”), derived from the Greek word mimema, “something imitated,” often refers to a piece of information passed from one mind to another. The term first came into popular use with the publication of the book The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins in 1976, and the conceptual framework of memes borrows from the study of genes — the units of biological transmission. Historically, the notion of a unit of social evolution, and a similar term (from Greek mneme, ‘memory’), first appeared in 1904 in a work by the German evolutionarybiologistRichard Semon:Die Mnemische Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalenempfindungen, translated intoEnglish in 1921 as The Mneme.

By analogy with genetics, a meme passes from generation to generation via family and cultural traditions or training rather than via sexual reproduction, with occasional “mutations.” Another common usage of the term “meme” relates closely to academic study of folklore and the informal communication of cultural information, in which memes fit into an analogy of “language as a virus.”

Glenn Grant: Meme (pron. meem): A contagious information pattern that replicates by parasitically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. (Term coined by Dawkins, by analogy with “gene”.) Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic.

Tony Lezard: Richard Dawkins, who coined the word in his book The Selfish Gene defines the meme as simply a unit of intellectual or cultural information that survives long enough to be recognized as such, and which can pass from mind to mind. There’s not much of a sense of describing thought processes, but nor is it just a model. As Richard Dawkins writes (this is from memory), “God indeed exists, if only as a pattern in brain structures replicated across the minds of billions of people throughout the world.” (Of course the patterns aren’t physically identical, but they represent the same thing.)

Richard Dawkins: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leading from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.
Memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn’t just a way of talking — the meme for, say, ‘belief in life after death’ is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of people all over the world.

H. Keith Henson: A meme survives in the world because people pass it on to other people, either vertically to the next generation, or horizontally to our fellows. This process is analogous to the way willow genes cause willow trees to spread them, or perhaps closer to the way cold viruses make us sneeze and spread them.

Peter J. Vajk: It is important to note here that, in contrast to genes, memes are not encoded in any universal code within our brains or in human culture. The meme for vanishing point perspective in two-dimensional art, for example, which first appeared in the sixteenth century, can be encoded and transmitted in German, English or Chinese; it can be described in words, or in algebraic equations, or in line drawings. Nonetheless, in any of these forms, the meme can be transmitted, resulting in a certain recognizable element of realism which appears only in art works executed by artists infected with this meme.

Heith Michael Rezabek: My favorite example of a crucial meme would be “fire” or more importantly, “how to make a fire.” This is a behavioral meme, mind you, one which didn’t necessarily need a word attached to it to spring up and spread, merely a demonstration for another to follow. Once the meme was out there, it would have spread like wildfire, for obvious reasons… But when you start to think of memes like that — behavioral memes — then you can begin to see how language itself, the idea of language, was a meme. Writing was a meme. And within those areas, more specific memes emerged.

Lee Borkman: Memes, like genes, vary in their fitness to survive in the environment of human intellect. Some reproduce like bunnies, but are very short-lived (fashions), while others are slow to reproduce, but hang around for eons (religions, perhaps?). Note that the fitness of the meme is not necessarily related to the fitness that it confers upon the human being who holds it. The most obvious example of this is the “Smoking is Cool” meme, which does very well for itself while killing off its hosts at a great rate.

“… emotions must always be accountable to the faculties of reason and will.”

“Life is not an intellectual process – life is a feeling. “

“As paradoxical as it may appear, listening to the heart, as opposed to rationalizing, is in fact what constitutes true thinking. The academics of this world do not like to admit it, but the truth of the matter is that all so-called ‘great minds’ act upon feeling. Irrespective of whether it is a new invention, a remarkable discovery in science, a musical composition or a great work of art, the creativity that has led to such works has its origin in feeling. Only once that feeling has been translated into a mental vision of what can be, does the inventor, scientist, composer or artist use the rational mind to work out the practicalities involved in materialising his vision.” – Theun Mares

“… Our brain is not only a window on the universe; it is part of the organism and hence also an input into the universe. Transmitted thought subtle wave-propagations in the psi-field, traffic between the brain and the rest of the universe flows in both directions. Whatever thoughts, images, feelings and intuitions enter our consciousness have their counterparts in the electrochemical activity of our neural networks, and these networks constantly read their Gabor-transforms into the field. This means that our most fleeting thoughts and vaguest intuitions are encoded in the cosmic vacuum and remain conserved in it.

Given the two-way traffic between human brains and the world, each person’s thoughts and perceptions are of direct consequence to his environment, including other persons. This is because in altered states the brain does not distinguish finely shaded individual variations in the psi-fieldpatterns – within a range of variation, the brain-state of one individual can be read by another. In consequence our experiences can be accessed by others with suffiently matching states of brain and mind. This makes for a new depth of responsibility in human beings: what we think and feel can influence our fellow beings, not only those who surround us here and now, but also those who live in distant places and in future generations.”

The Creative Cosmos – A unified science of matter, life and mind – Ervin Laszlo

Realising the importance of my thoughts and emotions, I started about 15 years ago, to work consciously with thought and emotions. To truly make a change you have to acknowledge every aspect of yourself, the good and the bad. If you just ignore the really despicable thoughts that may arise in your mind, suppress it as quickly as you can, without acknowledging it, and so bring it into the light, it will fester and erupt when you least expect. (In the world at large, this is reflected in terrorism, I belief that.) What is inherent in one human being, is inherent in another, the good and the bad, therefore I will listen to everyone, even if I disagree totally with them. I never know when I might find a puzzle piece to myself, reflected back through the mirrors of my fellow human beings.

When you first start to observe your thoughts they seem to take flight like a flock of birds. Where there were lots before, now there are none. Just as with the birds, if you wait quietly they will return.

Learning to discern between feelings and emotions are like learning to read. At first it appears as a confusing jumble, making no sense. But as you progress, certain words will become recognisable.So you progress until you have built enough of vocabulary and understanding of the grammar, suddenly it is so clear. It is hard to remember not ever having been able to read. As you expand your reading, so the finer nuances will also become clearer.

Emotions would probably be better understood if it were termed moods. Some say that we have inherent in all of us, nine emotional states: apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, pride, courageousness, acceptance and peace. Think of emotions as filters. Whatever emotion you are experiencing colours your experience of the present, interpretation of the past and future views. What it also does, is allow through, or restrict energy flow. When you are apathetic you have a low energy flow. When you feel lust, you have a high-energy flow. So when some girls speak of strong feelings aroused by “jerk”, she is actually saying he is a strong mood-setter. In this particular case the mood-setter would fall under lust. In the sub-categories of lust falls the emotion of want. Results are clear enough.

For me feelings, thoughts, intuition and inspiration are closely aligned, and fall under what could be called “imaginative consciousness”. But to properly utilise your emotions you should be able to recognise your emotions. Then your emotions won’t direct your thinking, but your thinking can direct your emotions. In other words utilise the energy flow.

Now when I feel the emotion of fear, I rationally use the guide of my intuition to navigate a way through what triggered my emotion of fear.

No human being can truly claim to be free, unless emotional freedom has been achieved, by becoming emotionally literate. Yet why will so few make the effort to become emotionally literate? One of the reasons for this, I believe, is because when people imagine what it is like to be emotionally literate, fluently so, they often think it means that you stop feeling things like anger, sorrow, doubt or pain, Deep down, however, we all know intuitively that to stop feeling those, you would also stop feeling the “feel-good” emotions. This brings a feeling of resistance to wanting to become emotionally literate. Somehow it feels as if you might be less human.

This could not be further from the truth. In being emotionally literate, you do not stop feeling, in fact your ability to feel becomes sensitized and intense. You still feel all of the human emotions, but you just recover to equilibrium quicker. You still feel anger, pain, sorrow and doubt, but it doesn’t rule you.

I taught myself ’emotional literacy’ by watching myself react to external situations, watching my thoughts and see how the two mutually affects the other. This means withdrawing to the watcher, or the Witness. To most people, thoughts and emotions are as involuntary as their heart rate and blood pressure. I feel that emotions are like being mounted on a powerful horse. For the rider and the horse to move as one towards a single purpose, both have to know the other, there has to be trust between them, an awareness of the qualities of the other.

When you are aware and in control of your emotions you can at times when it is appropriate just, let go, and ride it in wild abandon, for you trust yourself enough, trust in your skill, to know that when you have to, you can reign it in. With emotional literacy you can really enjoy your emotions, which enables you to enjoy the finer nuances of living, and enables you to truly live life. Above all you can truly love, without fear.

Emotions are always messengers of your current state of being, they arrive to bring you a well-being report. They are much like pop-up messages saying something needs or wants attention. However, much like pop-up messengers, you cannot just ignore it, you have to do something about it. It is not always appropriate in timing to deal with emotions when you feel them. Then you have to deal with them as a mother would deal with a child seeking immediate attention when it is not appropriate. With the tenderness of a loving mother, “hug” them and say, “I hear and acknowledge you, but right now is not appropriate, later…” But just as you better keep your promises to a child, lest they become insecure and distrustful, so you better keep your promises and do tend to the request for attention.

Our ancient desires have been looked on as primitive by the sophisticated mind of the present day, rejected as the “black sheep” of ourselves. Just like the Western colonizing forces rejected the “primitiveness ” of those they conquered so we have been taught that our ancient and inherent desires, are an inferior something that must be conquered and subjugated for us to be worthy citizens of the world. We can disown that instinctive and intuitive part of ourselves at our own peril, for just as you would feel quilt an unease at disowning members of your family so you will feel about disowning a part of yourself. Never knowing when it will suddenly and unexpectedly make its embarrassing appearance. We can never hope to really have fulfilling relationships if we do not honour all that we are. You will only attract possible relationships to your mask and deep inside you will doubt the love of the other. Does he /she only love my mask? You then do not allow the transforming power of love to transform your ancient and inherited desires into something of beauty, something noble.

Emotional Collateral Damage

Thomas Shea

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Is my life worth less than yoursDo I hold my children lessdear than youDo I feel pain less than you do?Do I love less than you do?

I am little peopleBut I am aliveAnd I love life too.

Personally I see the concept of collateral damage originating from the perception of seeing others as lesser than you are, of lesser importance. The immediate equation that follow is that the lesser’s feelings are also of lesser importance. If you put yourself for example in the shoes of slaves, and feel with your emotions what pain they must have felt, it becomes unbearable, the absolute horror overwhelming.

People have become so hardened by bombardment of media images of mass suffering that they do not relate to the feelings of individuals. It is of course a screening device to help us survive in the world. However, it can become habitual and negatively affect our relationships with others and the world around us.

Yet, just as collateral damage is considered perfectly acceptable for the good of the greater cause, just so there exists a hierarchy of invalidation of feelings for people. The higher up you are in the power stakes the more worth your feelings are given. Right or wrong that is how the world is operating and how it has been operating for as long as we have known. Men have been conditioned with “men don’t cry” because it would be very inconvenient indeed for men to break down and cry in war situations. Similarly it is not good for women rant and rave in the upbringing of children.

It is not that everyone does not experience the same pain but rather what feelings can be considered collateral damage in the greater scheme of things. What really is the difference between what one person experience as pain and another? Personally, I think there is no difference. Pain is pain. We all feel pain in degrees; mild pain, acceptable pain, great pain, and unbearable pain. Different things would trigger different degrees of pain in different people. Pain is relative to each individual but it is still experienced as pain. What differs from individual to individual, gender to gender, and culture to culture, is how we respond to pain and fear of pain. Our culture and upbringing have conditioned how we respond. No one can really say that one person’s feelings are of lesser importance than another’s for if we do we are condemning them as lesser.

If we really want true equality, we must consider the feelings of all as of equal importance. But I am sure most will just shake their heads and say this will never happen. Be that as it may, it can still help us to stop objectifying others. Stop making instant judgements of others. Stop us from judging another “unless we have walked in their shoes.”

“You can only relate to people when you can mentally trade places with them.”

If we dare to look at what those considered lesser must experience in pain and still carry on living, one is filled with tremendous admiration and awe. For me, by allowing myself to honestly look at the pain others have to undergo, I am filled with hope. It helps me to personally to overcome my fears, because by seeing what pain others can endure, I know that because I am also human, I can survive whatever life throws at me.